Burned
by Circle123
Summary: Part of him wondered if he should cry, too, for the man he had been. Musings on regeneration across four Doctors.
1. Madman

He was battered and bleeding, but not mortally wounded. He wished he was.

Gallifrey.

Gallifrey.

Home. Family. Friends. Future.

Gone now.

All alone. _I am alone._

The TARDIS didn't even hum in response, as if it too were grieving.

Dead. They were all dead. He killed them all.

And he wanted to say, to think that he'd had to, to save the universe, end the hell. But he knew better. At the end, he hadn't done it to save anything, anyone, but himself. He'd killed them all. His own species.

He'd have to change his name, now. He was no longer the Doctor.

 _Murderer. Killer._

Names he'd called himself ever since he enacted The Moment.

They would all blame him, if they could. Romana. The Master. All of them. Everyone and anyone who knew what he'd done. They'd stand around him and tell him he could have found another way. Murderer, they'd say. You committed genocide, specicide.

If he could be held to trial, he knew what sentence he would give himself.

 _Why don't you just die?_

He curled up on the grated floor of the TARDIS and waited until he did.

When flames engulfed him and left only the ashes of a former self, he found a soldier with a heart of stone, suicidal tendencies and a contemptuous streak three miles wide.

But he found that he was still the Doctor, and, in time, he found that stone could melt, and a heart could heal.

A girl named Rose became hope and light and life and everything, and eventually, suicide became sacrifice.

And the soldier became the romantic, who would love and lose so much in a burning, blazing firework of a lifetime.

 _Murderer. Killer._

The Oncoming Storm became the Last of the Time Lords.

And when the romantic, the Last of the Time Lords, became too broken and burned out, too angry and lost, for the name Doctor, he became the Time Lord Victorious.

And suffered his greatest defeat.

The knocking was almost a relief. _Will it stop now? The question in my head? The voices? My accusers? Will they stop now?_

It was the sound of his own madness.

The Last of the Time Lords, the Time Lord Victorious, became the Madman with a Box.

 _Murderer. Killer._

 _Madman._


	2. Her Name

Four knocks.

He thinks, maybe, that the universe is toying with him. _Naw, you won't die. Look! They're all gone! You're safe!_

Four knocks.

He's scared.

Scared for himself. He knows what is coming, what has come, but unlike his last regeneration's sacrifice, this one isn't an easy choice. He knows what could happen, if he stays and lets Wilf, Donna's so very precious grandfather, die.

He's a Time Lord. What could be has always been very real.

He knows he should be thinking in the past tense. What could have been. But with Rose, it's always the present. He'd catch himself slipping with the others, with Donna and Martha, slipping into the present tense as if she was just waiting for him around the corner with a grin on her lips and a tease in her tone.

 _I could do so much more!_

He sees himself somehow finding a way, a crack in the universe, finding a way back to her. He sees himself knocking at her flat, sees her fling herself into his arms. Him-the other him-is inexplicably absent. He sees the first time they really kiss, the first time he finally, finally says he loves her.

He sees their wedding, the daughter with Rose's eyes and his smile, the son with hair that won't cooperate and eyes that are, strangely, the same intense cobalt blue that used to stare back at him from the mirror.

Rose recognizes them, of course-Rose knows whose eyes they are.

 _Don't you see all I could do? All I could have?_

 _It's not fair!_

 _Rose Tyler. You can spend the rest of your life with me. And I wish I could spend the rest of mine with you._

The only problem is, he already has. One lifetime as a soldier in a black leather coat. One lifetime as a half-human. And now, with this last stop, one lifetime as a pretty-boy with a manic grin.

He's had three lifetimes with her, he thinks, staring into her eyes one last time. She doesn't even know who he is yet, but still. Three lifetimes where she made him better.

He is afraid for himself, for who would he be without her?

She will have a great year. She will meet him, he will meet her, and he will fall completely, irrevocably in love.

He will believe in her.

He cannot believe in himself anymore.

Stumbling into his ship, he is afraid.

Scared silly, him. The Last of the Time Lords. He has become so very human, with this regeneration. A subconscious effort, perhaps, to be more like her. And oh, Rassilon, he is _so afraid._ Because he knows what will come.

 _I don't want to go._

 _I don't want to leave her behind._

But the fires of regeneration cannot be postponed any longer. For a moment, when all his regenerations slide together, he senses the crackle of an oncoming storm in the air, a faint whiff of leather and eyes bluer than the skies Rose loves. _I know, you stupid pretty-boy. You could never tell her, for either of us,_ he hears, but there is no voice. _I loved her too._

And then it is gone. He is blistering, searing, everything that makes him who he is burned and charred away. Their love bleeds through his fingertips as the man he is begins to melt. _Rose,_ he thinks. _RoseroseroseroseROSE!_

 _I can't forget her. I love her. Rose! Rose! I love you! I love you, Rose Tyler! Don't make this my last chance, please, to say it, Rose Tyler, I_

Her name is peeled from his lips like a promise broken.

The pain stops.

There was a name. Something he was supposed to remember?

Oh, Rose, of course. What did Rose have to do with anything? Hadn't he left her behind?

Suddenly, his fingers seem far more interesting than a name buried in the ashes of two men who no longer exist.

Somewhere, locked away inside him, he is afraid. For who will he be without her?

The him who wore leather puts his hand on the shoulder of the him who wore converse with a suit.

The pinstriped him cries, sinks to his knees and sobs a name, while somewhere a TARDIS is crashing and a gangly giraffe of a man is worried that he's regenerated into a girl.


	3. Bowties

"Geronimo," whispered the Eleventh, and even though Clara knew what would happen, had seen it happen before, her breath was knocked out of her and for exactly eleven double heartbeats, there was nothing before her eyes but searing, white-hot flames.

When the light faded, the insides of her eyelids blistering, she blinked.

There he was. The Doctor.

The Twelfth.

He was less ridiculous, certainly, than the Eleventh. She could tell, just by looking at him. Not as pretty as the Tenth, older too, and he didn't have the bad-boy quality of the Ninth or the lush curls of the Eighth, but he was the Doctor.

He just wasn't her Chin Boy anymore.

He loosened his bow tie and held it up with two fingers, looking at her.

The first words out of his mouth were, "Why on earth am I wearing a bow tie?"

"You thought they were cool," Clara said, and burst into tears.

Perhaps he would still show her the stars. Perhaps she'd still be the Impossible Girl. Perhaps she could still save him.

But she hadn't been able to save her Chin Boy, and at that moment, nothing else mattered.

And she sobbed, in the green light from the TARDIS, and the Twelfth Doctor looked on and part of him wondered if he should cry, too, for the man he had been.

Because bow ties had been cool.

And now they weren't.

That's all there was to it.


End file.
